My Prince
by miss selah
Summary: He says no, but he wants to say yes. [Petrellicest]


* * *

**_My Prince_**

* * *

He is five an awkward and he is just learning how to stumble. He takes a fall, and Nathan helps him up. His arms are under his shoulders, and Peter, with his scrapped up knees and dirty face feels safe.

"Stupid," Nathan tells him and brushes him off, and kneels down on his knees to give Peter's bloody knee, which is only just beginning to scab, a butterfly kiss. "Be more careful, Princess."

Peter blushes, and nods, and even if he doesn't quite get it. . . He knows.

* * *

He is six and it is his first day of preschool, and he clings to his brother's his Prince's his Nathan's arm, and the fabric is crushed and wrinkled beneath his sweaty grip. At eleven, Nathan is beginning to think that appearances are everything, but he ignores the compulsive urge to swat his brother's hands away, because he loves him, and that's what brother's do.

"I don't want to go to this place." Peter whimpers, and turns his pale, chubby face to Nathan's. "Can I go home?"

"No." Nathan doesn't like to be harsh, but it's better if he hears it from him - it will teach Peter to be strong when the real bullies come.

"Not even if you take me?"

Nathan shrugs him off now, pulling Peter's greasy, chubby fingers from his sleeve. "No." He tells him again, even though he wishes that he could say yes.

He'll never say yes.

* * *

Peter is ten and comes home with another black eye, but says nothing. Mother doesn't ask him about it, because mother is drunk drunk drunk and father is at the office making a difference in the world by fucking his secretary senseless.

But Nathan sees it. Nathan sees everything.

"Peter, are you okay?" He asks, even though he knows the answer.

"Yes." It's their favorite word.

"Are you sure?"

_No. _It remains unspoken, but both brothers hear it.

Both brothers keep it their secret.

* * *

Peter is fifteen and stumbling through puberty the same way he stumble through adolescene, on quaking legs and with more hope than Nathan would ever dream to have. His hair, which could still be called scruffy, could also be called handsome, and his cocky, half smile that could still be called in endearing could now also be called coy.

Peter is fifteen, and Nathan would rather not think about the implications of their relationship.

Peter is twenty when he becomes a nurse, and twenty one when he starts to dream.

Cradled in his brother's arms, hidden from his brother's wife, he toys with Nathan's loosely tied bow that they hadn't bothered to remove and confesses.

"Sometimes I dream about flying."

Nathan laughs and shakes it off as ironic.

"Sometimes I dream you're the only one flying and I'll always be watching."

Nathan tries to reassure him with wit and smiles. "You know that some people say that when you dream about flying, you are actually dreaming about sex."

Peter looks him over, assessing his remark and recognizing it for what it is – a distraction. "Then what about when you dream about having sex? What does that mean?"

Nathan laughs and takes him again.

Peter tells him that Nathan's just obsessed with sex.

Nathan agrees.

* * *

Peter is thirty one when he meets Claire.

Her hair is blonde, and her body is tight, and she makes him feel invincible. It isn't until he mets Claude Rains that he realizes that she really does make him invincible.

The information is more nerve wracking than he would have expected.

It's not, however, more shocking than finding out that she is Nathan's daughter. Peter doesn't say it out loud, but he knows that there is some truth to the like father, like daughter adage.

She almost kisses like him, too.

* * *

Peter was thirty two when he died. His birthday had passed in a bit of a blur three days before the election, and everyone was too busy worried about other things to say anything to him.

He was thirty two and five days old when he died, the exploding man who killed point zero seven percent of the world's population.

His last thought before everything went dead was that at least this way, Nathan will win the election.

* * *

He wakes up to the smell of perfume, in a city that has died.

A city he has murdered.

Claire is cradling his head in her lap, and he takes comfort in the smell of her body her perfume her tears, because anything is better than the smell of death and dying, of rust and soot and the smells of the tomb that is New York.

Claire realizes that he is awake, he is alive, and takes him up under the shoulder, as if invinciblitiy also meant super strength. He helps her, but stumbles twice, and leans against her with a sigh.

He is scrapped up, and his face is dirty and the world has ended, but for once in a very long time, Peter feels safe again.

"Stupid," Claire tells him and brushes him off, and leans up on her tip toes to Peter's cut lip, which has nearly healed over, and gives him butterfly kisses to make the pain go away. "Be more careful." She says, as if anything like this can ever happen again.

They stand on the smoldering remains of a dead city, holding each other and wondering why me why you why us?

Nathan's voice, a ghost like the city is a ghost, rings true and clear. Both hear, but neither will ever admit. Especially since they don't understand why he is saying 'yes' on the wind of a dead city.

* * *


End file.
